Nutraceutical composition of three pine bark extracts and their antiproliferative effect on Caco-2 cells

[Display omitted] •Pine extracts have anti-proliferative effect through mitochondrial apoptosis.•A significant decrease in ROS generation was found in the presence of pine barks.•P. pinaster was the one that showed the greatest biological activity.•Pine barks are interesting for developing functional foods. The use of vegetal materials that go unused or by-products of the food industry, for the development of functional foods is very interesting. Pine bark extracts have been useful in medicine and in functional foods, yet, little is known about its antiproliferative properties. In this work, the activity of bark extracts from different Pinus species on human colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells was studied. All these extracts induce cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis in Caco-2 cells through alteration of the mitochondrial membrane potential, release of cytochrome c to cytoplasm and caspase 3 activation. In addition, a significant decrease in ROS generation was also observed in the presence of the extracts tested. The results obtained in this work show that these extracts could be interesting in order to elaborate functional foods and not only for improving their antioxidant properties but also for playing an important role in the treatment of colorectal carcinoma.